Letters

This is in response to Karl D. Shehu's Dec. 23 op-ed column, "After the massacre: the roots of reform." The analogy he makes between guns and cars falls short.

Mr. Shehu, an attorney, has difficulty with the concept of intent. A motor vehicle is a tool designed with the intent of enabling a person to get from point A to point B. Although its misuse can result in death, one does not purchase nor utilize a car to kill.

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al.cap wrote on Dec 31, 2012 5:22 AM:

" when you target the weapon that is used less than half of the time to commit crimes of this nature, you illustrate your true intent.

statistically speaking, the number of people killed in this manner is extremely small. more people are struck by lightning, nearly 20 times more people drown, and over 2000 times more die in car accidents, every year.

to the enthusiast, the car, or gun, is their symbol of freedom. each probably has one which they consider a prized possession. both must be trained and licensed to use said possession in public. and when either is used recklessly, they can be dangerous. we have vehicles that are capable of traveling well above any acceptable speed limit. we don't require governors to limit speed. we don't allow a sprint cup race car on the highway, and we don't allow military weapons in the hands of civilians. you can get corvette. it's like a race car, but legal. you can get an ar-15, it's like an m-16, but legal. "

" Rose, There is always Venezuela, England, or a host of other places for you to live. Here in America we have the right (and responsibility) to protect ourselves and our freedoms. Do you not understand criminals will ALWAYS have guns? Do you not know why the Japanese or Germans never landed on our soil? Do you believe our leaders are any less likely to use our own military against us than they do in Iran and Libya if we weren't armed?

Will someone with a gun kill innocents in this country again? YES they will. Will banning guns from law abiding citizens stop it? NO

The more liberties we give up., the less safe we DESERVE to be. Only 2 thing that will have an immediate impact on school safety is to allow God back in and some sort of security guard. Most inner city schools have police officers assigned to protect teachers and students from bad students. This is not a new idea. Don't let the Socialists running this country now trick you into supporting their agenda. "

" @Conservative1; are you serious? Do you really believe that you are any match for the military or even the police in this country. OMG; if they want to get you they will remember Waco; (although it was David Koresh that started the fires that finally killed "his" people, but they would have gotten him because he was impregnating 12 year old girls, which is against our laws.

My advice is don't break the law, however, that being said, the ship for our rights of freedom which were violated in Germany, have already been done, in other words that ship has sailed, Hitler had some laws changed and that is how he did what he did, But Mr. Bush did that with the patriot act. Read it if you ever get off this blog and you will learn that they can arrest anyone in this country now without real cause or a warrant, imprison you and not allow you to have a lawyer, etc and keep you imprisoned for as long as they like. The reason for this is because after 911 Bush took advantage of everyone's fears and got this passed in the name of freedom and catching the bad guys even though it was too late. But good luck if you think that assault rifle will help when the helicopters are hovering over your house and the swat team is pulling up in your driveway. "

" @c4- pretty confident about your control over the army, there. check out the posts by actual members of law enforcement and military in the comments following any article on any website. you might be surprised.

and as bad as koresh was, waco was an indictment of government abuse in the highest degree. noticed you stopped the references to ruby ridge. does the thought of an fbi sniper shooting vicki weaver in the throat while she held a baby not fit with your macho government tough guy image. that's precisely why people like us feel the way we do. like i said, those incidents should disgust you. "

" @Al; I was not referring to Ruby Ridge, I don't know much about that, I was saying that what David Koresh was doing was against the law, or do you condone the rape of 12 girls, and would not submit to law enforcement and that is why they got into a stand off. That is why I said that we should be law abiding citizens and if he was, he would not have been involved in this situation to begin with. I do not have any control of the army; or am I in favor of the law enforcement overstepping it's bounds; but he who lives by the sword dies by the sword; I don;t own a gun and David Koresh had a cache of arms and ammunition in there because he was a meniacal insane person and committing crimes, so stay out of trouble there Al and you won't have to face Waco. He killed those people, not the government, and yes he should not have been allowed to do what he was doing; I am glad we are a law abiding nation and have the right to enforce those laws, if you aren't doing anything wrong you don't have anything to fear. I also notice that you did not address what I pointed out, that because of the exploitation of fear after 911 by Bush that the patriot act allows the government to invade the privacy of any citizen they "deem" dangerous. You should be much more afraid of that then being holed up in a David Koresh complex and having your rights ignored because it was Koresh that took away those people's rights many of them not allowed to escape, not the government. "

" the patriot act is obviously an over reaching piece of legislation enacted during an emotional time. thankfully, it's being allowed to expire. it should be repealed entirely. but i won't compound that by supporting more knee-jerk legislation.

koresh needed to be stopped, but i'll never agree with the way the gov handled it. "

" @Al; Well, I am glad that you admit the patriot act was a knee jerk legislation, however, it remains to be seen if it is repealed. It needs to be repealed because as I said that is very dangerous for our privacy and even many republicans are for repealing it, nuff said.As for Koresh, they gave that guy every opportunity to come out I think at least a week, not sure, but they would have done this even to a bank robber. They had negotiators there that tried their hardest to reach him and finally they knew he was never going to come out. He did not want to go to jail and started fires that killed the so called people he claimed he was trying to save through Jesus; the man was insane. In the end he was the one that killed himself and innocent people with him by setting the place on fire. Why are we even having this discusssion I don't really know because this is a no brainer. He shouldn't have had all of those guns either that's what this is all about; it never would have happened if he didn't. I already posted a comment similar to this, but I think I lost it just in case it posts twice that is why. "

If what you say is really the truth, then all the more reason I will be holding on to my weaponry.

But aside from that, also understand that as military man myself, I too took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, and a little thing about the UCMJ, you aren't required to follow an order if it is lawful, so good luck trying to get the military to go round up all the guns, they'll probably just tell you to pound sand.

And where does everyone get the notion from that people will stand as individuals with the assault weapons against the government? And that the government, one person at a time will swoop in with helicopters, and , erh ASSAULT RIFLES, and what not, taking these people out one at a time? That it will always be a lone wolf situation. God forbid it ever comes to that point, it isn't going to work that way, it is going to be whole towns worth of people, or more. Either way, more than one or two individuals. There will be a 'tipping point' as Kitty would say. "

" None of the solutions presented by anyone to date would have prevented the Newtown incident.

Stronger laws concerning gun storage in the home is one measure we need to look at. The other is in applying the same background/mental health checks on household members of permit holders that we impose on permit holders themselves.

" no objection here, t. one question, four adults in my house, all permitted. one 20yr old. at what age do you recommend these checks begin? obviously, my three year old grandson doesn't have a background. and the aclu might object to the state investigating an adult who isn't applying. i suppose it would be easy enough to tell the kid to ok the check, or move out.

also, in a situation like the lanzas, what if the disturbed is a non resident family member?

" @ al.cap - I'm prepared to stand up to the ACLU for objecting to the background check of a non-permit seeking adult on the basis that the adult has unfettered access to a firearm by virtue of their residence.

I say we begin reporting student behavioral history to the NICS database that is used in the gun permit check process.

There's too many signs that warn us of this behavior well before it happens and well prior to the person committing any crime. That's the problem with using a criminal record as our sole basis for revoking a gun permit. We need to think deeper about how to ID a nutjob and keep the firearms away from HIM.

"Banning firearms" as a solution here is akin to euthanasia as a solution to cancer. We nee to tackle this with a well placed scalpel, not a chainsaw. "

" What we really need to do is protect the schools that identify kids as 'troubled' or 'crazy'. These days, if a school does point them out, they'll get sued for libel or slander. So instead the schools just transfer them to another school or district and say, not my problem anymore. So instead of helping the kids they just dump the problem on someone else's plate, because they fear the almighty lawsuit. Lawyers are a huge problem in this country. Everybody can sue anyone for any reason. And because of the expense involved, most defendants will settle to avoid the cost of litigation that can take years.

If you are a lawyer, and you want to respond to this, you can't argue with the fact that law schools are now teaching budding legal talent how to find laws to exploit, ways to sue people and things to sue people for. I think being a lawyer was a once respectable job, but now most of them are just garbage-eating bottom-feeders. "

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